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Sri Mulyani was born in Tanjung Karang (now called Bandar Lampung) in Lampung, Sumatra, on August 26, 1962. She is the seventh child of university lecturers Prof. Satmoko and Retno Sriningsih. Her name is of Javanese origin, with Sanskrit roots.[7]Sri has the meaning of radiance, or diffusing light,[8] and is common as both honorific and part of female names among Javanese. Mulyani comes from the word mulya which is used to describe the concept value, valuable.[9]Indrawati come from Indra and feminine suffix -vati.

Sri Mulyani was selected as Indonesian Finance Minister in 2005 by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. One of her first acts was to fire corrupt tax and custom officers in the department. She successfully tackled corruption and initiated reforms in Indonesia's tax and customs office[5][14] and enjoys a reputation for integrity.[15] She succeeded in increasing direct investment in Indonesia. In 2004, the year President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took office, Indonesia received $4.6 billion in foreign direct investment. The next year, it attracted $8.9 billion.[16]

In August 2008, Mulyani was ranked by Forbes magazine as the 23rd most powerful woman in the world[19] and the most powerful woman in Indonesia. During her tenure as Finance Minister, the country's foreign exchange reserves reached an all-time high of $50 billion.[19] She oversaw a reduction in public debt to about 30% of gross domestic product from 60%,[5] making it easier for Indonesia to sell debt to foreign institutional investors. She also revised incentive structures for civil servants in her ministry and began paying higher salaries to tax officials deemed to be "clean" so they would have less temptation to accept bribes.[20]

After Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was re-elected in 2009, she was re-appointed in her post of Finance Minister. In 2009 the Indonesian economy grew up by 4.5% while many part of the world is in recession. Indonesia is one of just three major emerging economies to grow faster than 4% in 2009. The other two are China and India.[5] Under her supervision, government has managed to increase the number of income taxpayers from 4.35 million individuals to nearly 16 million in the last five years, and tax receipts grew by around 20% each year to more than Rp 600 trillion in 2010.[23]

In November 2013, British newspaper The Guardian published article with report from leaks by Edward Snowden, showing that Australian intelligence had allegedly hacked into mobile phones of top Indonesian leaders in 2009. This included Sri Mulyani which at that was the minister of finance. .[24] Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot defended it by saying that the activities were not so much “spying” as “research” and that its intention would always be to use any information “for good”.

Her resignation was viewed negatively and caused financial turmoil in Indonesia, with the stock exchange closing down 3.8% after the news, amid a broad sell off in Asia, while the Indonesian rupiah fell nearly 1% against the dollar.[20] The drop in Indonesian stock exchange was the sharpest in 17 months.[28] The move has been called as "Indonesia’s loss, and the World’s gain".[29][30][31]

There was widespread speculation that her resignation was due to political pressure,[13][32][33] especially from powerful tycoon and chairman of Golkar Party, Aburizal Bakrie.[34][35] Bakrie is known to have enmity toward Mulyani[36] due to her investigation into massive tax fraud in the Bakrie Group, her refusal to prop up Bakrie's coal interests with government funds,[13] and her refusal to state that the Sidoarjo mud flow, which is widely believed to have been caused by drilling of Bakrie's company, was a "natural disaster".

Right before her resignation, The Legislature, spearheaded by Golkar Party,[38][39][40] accused Sri Mulyani of a crime with the bailout of medium scale Bank Century in 2008. Critics of the bailout claim it was done without legal authority and without proving a capital injection was needed to prevent a run on other banks, Bank Century bailout cost the state to suffer a financial lost amounting to 6,7 trillions rupiah ($710 million).[41] Sri Mulyani has defended the bailout as necessary given the uncertainties in the global economy at the time and denied any wrongdoing.[20]

However, criticism about Sri Mulyani's policy also came from ex vice president Jusuf Kalla. In his harshest comments yet on the controversial PT Bank Century bailout, former Vice President Jusuf Kalla denied claims by former Bank Indonesia officials that if the lender had been allowed to fail it would have had a systemic impact on the country’s banking system and economy.

Furthermore, all of the nine factions on the House of Representatives special committee agreed that there were suspicious and possibly fraudulent transactions during the bailout period beginning in November 2008 and evidence of money laundering. They all then said they lacked the expertise to do more and called on the National Police and Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to take over.[43]